The Legend of Tommy Kirk

In Loving Memory of Terry Lester, born May 14, 1953 - entered eternity December 23, 2024

Some people are known for certain things. Sometimes you know why, and sometimes you don’t, but there’s always a story behind the name.

For instance, Jeff Bezos—when you hear that name, the first thing you think of is Amazon. When you think of Moses, you think of the Ten Commandments. There’s a lot Jeff Bezos did, and there’s a lot Moses did, but for some reason, that’s the first thing that pops into your head when you think of their names. It’s the same here, but for me, when I hear the name Tommy Kirk, all I can think of is my dad.

He did a lot of things in life. He was a big sports fan, played basketball, football, baseball—you name it, he did it. He was also a basketball and football coach, a school teacher, a construction worker, an ordained minister, and a great dad to five crazy kids, and one fantastic grandpa! He was the best, most unconditionally loving husband to my mom, and I still can’t wrap my head around how incredible that was.

He loved God and the things of God, and I know for a fact he had a personal relationship with Jesus. It was the only way he could’ve had peace beyond all understanding, especially dealing with my mom being bedridden for seven years. Absolutely incredible.

But even with all these things, all the memories, the laughter, and the stories we shared, the thing I most remember him for is telling the story of Tommy Kirk.

Tommy Kirk was an actor, in case y’all didn’t know, probably best known for Old Yeller and Savage Sam. I liked Old Yeller as a kid, and at the time, Tommy Kirk would’ve been the same age as me in the movie. I thought it’d be fantastic to hang out with him and be friends. But my dad told me that would be impossible because Tommy Kirk was killed in a plane crash.

You’d think that would be the end of it—a sad but unmemorable story. But years later, I saw Tommy Kirk in an interview as an old man. I was blown away and utterly shocked because the truth as I knew it was that Tommy Kirk was dead. From then on, it became the biggest joke in our family: you couldn’t trust anything Dad said because of Tommy Kirk. Whenever Dad told us something that was supposed to be a “fact,” we’d always ask, “Is this another Tommy Kirk story?”

Dad was always a good sport, even though we put him through the wringer. From painting his toenails while he napped (then him going to Bible study in flip-flops) to me shooting his reading glasses off his face while he slept, we never let up. One time, me and my sister fed him fried chicken grease with whipped cream on top and told him it was pudding. Mom even baked a green bean casserole with a fake rubber worm in it, and he ate it! There was the time Dad pushed on the butt of a dairy cow right after she’d eaten ryegrass. Dad didn’t know better at the time, but she covered him from shoulder down and even filled his newly bought rubber boots up with what we referred to as “The Dairy Cow Syndrome.”

One of my favorite memories was the time he took us out to the lake. We had to sneak out because we weren’t allowed to do stuff like that, but Dad made it happen. It was the first time he’d ever been on a jet ski. Anyone who knew my dad knew he drove slow, was laid-back, and chilled out. But that day, he got on the jet ski and whipped around the lake like he owned the place. When he came up to the dock, he stopped, raised his hands, and said, “I have found my calling.” Before he could finish, he lost his balance and slid off, flipping the jet ski upside down right at the dock. If we’d had a video of the people at the boat ramp, we’d have won America’s Funniest Home Videos—they were laid out laughing, and it was a sight to see.

There were other moments too. Like the time he sat on a drill he left on the ground while building a gazebo. My brother made him a birthday card with a drawing of the situation, and my sister wrote this poem on it:

“There once was a man named Dad, Whose tailbone hurt real bad. It felt better till he sat on the drill, And oh, what a pain he had.”

Then there was the time he was shearing sheep. He hated clip-on suspenders, said they just wouldn’t hold up and kept popping off his pants, so he got button-on ones instead. But as luck would have it, once while shearing, a sheep somehow got her back feet caught in his suspenders. She started kicking, and Dad couldn’t get free. To dads defense he was right, those button-on suspenders held up just fine! He hollered for help, but my brother was laughing too hard to do anything.

Another time, he got lost at Cedar Creek WMA while hunting. This was before cell phones, but another hunter found him and left a map on our car with a circle marked, that said: “Your dad is here.”

And then there was the turkey incident. Dad shot a turkey at 55 yards, the proudest he’d ever been hunting, this was amazing for dad, because he has never killed anything while hunting, not for lack of trying, he shot a things all the time sometimes even missing his car by mer inches, but he was always just about to kill something but could never make it happen, until now and he was so proud! well that was until he walked up and realized it was a hen. But Dad Being Dad, of course he calls the game warden and turned himself in. The warden said, “If you’re dumb enough to call me, I know you’re not poaching. Just don’t do it again.”

There are so many stories I could tell, like the time he tried to jump the neighbors fence on his scooter while bouncing off his exercise ball, or the time when my brother drove him through a tunnel that he was deathly afraid of, and so many others, but these are just a few that will always stay with me.

Lets just say Dad was defiantly being looked out for by God because all the things that happed to him he would not have made it without the grace of God, even in his final years, God was looking out for Dad. Despite his condition, he never had an ounce of pain. The doctors couldn’t explain it because they said he should’ve been in pain. He didn’t even need pain meds. It was incredible, even tho we never figured out what was wrong with him even tho we visited 34 different doctors and specialist over the course of about 2 years, he was always a good sport about it, and was aways saying “I just don’t want to be a burden to anyone” That was just my dad.

Dad always said, “I’m allergic to pain.” He told me many times, “I’m not afraid to die, but I’m afraid to hurt while doing it.” Once dad said “I don’t think im afraid to die, I just don’t want to be here when it happens” But our gracious God knew that too, and spared him. Some folks might say God didn’t spare him because He let him die, took him while he was still young, but I believe God took him home for a Christmas celebration at the perfect time, It has been 26 years since he had Christmas with my oldest brother Brad and I know he’s in heaven and I know they are celebrating the best Christmas ever with Christmas Himself! and while doing so God spared him from pain.

To most people, my dad was just ole Terry Lester, but to me, he was a legend in his own kind of way. He was a great example of a loving husband that anyone could learn from. There are so many lessons you can live and learn in life, but some lessons are best learned from others. When you have someone in your life that you can learn from, I would highly suggest you do so. For instance, my dad was big on rules—he and my mom both were. You could not be righteous unless you went by the rules. I was kicked out of the house for not following the rules—that’s just how strict it was. I even got punished once for parting my hair on the wrong side. But this was the way it was—it was their way or the highway. The only reason you have rules and enforce rules is because of what you’re taught, and that’s all you know until you find a different route or discover the truth. The only thing you’ll know as truth is what you’re taught. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you can’t have rules for your kids in your house growing up—that’s not it at all—but you have to tell them why there are rules and what the big picture is. My parents’ biggest saying was: “Because I said so.” This was whenever I asked the question “Why?” The reason is, most of the time, if not all the time, they actually didn’t know the reason; they were just blindly following rules and what they were taught to do, based on what they were taught to be true. My dad had a hard time with this later in life.

A while back, I had gotten him a chronological Bible, New Living Translation. It’s my favorite one to read because it just flows better. I got him that Bible and asked him to do a daily Bible reading with me, but he kept putting me off. I didn’t really know why; I figured he was just too busy with my mom at the time to do it. But after my mom passed away, my dad came to me and said, “I just want to thank you so much for giving me that Bible, and I am sorry that I kept putting you off.” He said that since it was not a King James Version Bible, he didn’t want to read it. But after my mom passed, he had some time and read some of it. He told me, “There is stuff in the Bible that I did not know was in there after 50 years of reading the Bible.” He said, “Thank you for giving me that,” and he kept apologizing to me for his take on rules.

This was because my dad firmly believed that the King James Version of the Bible was the only one to read. I’m not sure if this was something he was taught or something he made up, but this is what he firmly believed. All other translations, he thought, were from the devil, and he passed this on to me. I believed it as well because it was what I was taught. If you don’t search for the truth yourself and actually let the Holy Spirit lead you into all truth, you will come up with your own version of truth and start making rules and laws up for yourself, just like everyone does, making a god in their own image of what they think He is.

This is just one example of how rules and religion can ruin such a good thing—and that is a relationship with Jesus. If you focus on Jesus, nothing else will matter; nothing else will stand in the way. If you focus on rules, standards, and religion, Jesus starts to get blurred out in the background. That’s why Jesus tells us, “Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you.” He also says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Dad always thought he could find us the perfect church—maybe not the perfect one, but one that would best suit us. Even though he was a preacher, he hated preaching. (I believe this was because later in life he realized that in the kingdom of God no one is supposed to be above anyone else, and the leader must become the servant) Even tho I don’t think he knew this at the time, my dad just wanted to go to a church where he could listen, and all of us could learn a thing or two. Going to church was the thing to do; if you were not in church every Sunday, you were a heathen, a tax collector, or some other sort of sinner. But as long as you were in church, you were good to go. We went to quite a few churches, and none seemed to pan out. I grew up thinking it was all about the rules and religion, and I could not see past it. When you’re taught a certain thing, you’ll stick with it because you don’t know anything different. My dad was the same way, but once you go through so much crap, at some point, you’ve got to stop and realize that if you do the same thing over and over again, you’re going to end up with the same results. We jumped around from different churches and then started home churching because we thought that was the answer. But it turned out it still wasn’t, because everyone involved in the home church was still caught up in rules and religion. Everyone seems to forget that Jesus came to share with us a new way to eternity—not by following the old law. Even if we make a new law, we are still following the old law of rules and religion of the Pharisees, instead of following Jesus in spirit and in truth.

My dad finally stopped going to church, mainly because of taking care of my mom, but he never could quite grasp the reality that it’s not about the rules and laws. It wasn’t until later in life that I believe he fully understood the meaning of Christ’s body, the church. It’s not a building. It’s not rules. It’s not regulations. It’s not church standards or statements of faith. It’s about each individual’s personal relationship with Jesus. Each born-again, Bible-believing Christ-follower is the body of Christ—His church. As soon as you put one law or one standard on your life above what Jesus did for you on that cross, you’re telling Jesus He died in vain. And I’m telling you, folks, that’s a scary place to be.

Dad was apologizing to me for taking me to all those different churches. The reason he was apologizing was because growing up, I hated it. As soon as I would make some friends in one church, we would go to another one. I remember begging Dad to just stay at one, so my friends wouldn’t leave me or desert me. I remember one time from one Sunday to the next we switched churches, he came to wake me up that morning and I started begging him to not make me go, I wanted to back to the last one where I had friends, and I kept asking why and he said “Because I said so” That should’ve been enough but it wasn’t for me, I remember putting up such a fuss that I was able to go back to the previous church with a friend while the rest of the family went else where, this is just a pure mess but we were constant moving from church to church we had to find the one. I was so sad to see how he kept this all this time, He regretted this so much at the end. Every time we would talk, he would apologize for it. I told him over and over again—and I think he finally understood—”that if it wasn’t for you doing this, I would not actually know the truth, it was Gods plan.”

Jesus said, If you know the truth, the truth will set you free. If I had not been taken to all those different churches and seen how everybody and every church and denomination acts the same way with religion instead of Jesus, then when Jesus grabbed me by the throat and shook me that fine day, I would not have been able to see the truth, and if I couldn’t see the truth I couldn’t be set FREE.

I am so grateful for my dad and the lessons he taught me, even though he didn’t even know it at the time. But God had a plan for me, and He used Dad to fulfill it step by step. I could not be more thrilled about knowing the truth.

You can go to church every time the doors are open, you can read the King James Version Bible religiously, you can quote the Lord’s Prayer, you can follow every church standard perfectly, but if you do not have a personal relationship with Jesus—one-on-one time with Him—you won’t get to heaven. Jesus said, “Unless you’re born again, you cannot even see the kingdom of heaven.” Not just getting there—you can’t even see it to know where you’re going.

Jesus said, “Go into your closet, lock the door behind you, and pray to your Father.” This is a personal, one-on-one relationship with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the One and Only who came to earth in human form to feel what we feel, to go through what we go through, yet to show us the perfect example of what to do. He ultimately gave His life to ransom us from the grave so we could, if we choose to follow Him, be taken all the way to eternity. Jesus said, “Anyone who believes in me will not perish but have everlasting life.”

This is where it’s at, folks. Whoever believes in Jesus will never die; they will just go straight to eternity to be with Jesus forever in the greatest place imaginable. “No eye has seen, no ear has heard what God has prepared for those who love Him!” This is where dad is at now, WOW! I gotta say im just a little jealous!

Some folks might be sad that their loved ones are gone, but for me, myself, and I, I could not be more fired up because Dad is now in the presence of Jesus, having the best Christmas ever—not just with family but with Christ Jesus. Yes that’s right, I’m talking about Christmas Himself!

One day, I know I’m going to see Dad again—not in his pitiful, suffering body but in a whole new resurrected body. No pain, no sorrow, no strife—and we will spend eternity together. And that, folks, just freakin’ fires me up! So, no sadness or sorrow. Let’s really focus on what matters and remember—it’s all about Jesus, not us.

“What a day that will be when my Jesus I shall see!”

But with all that said, there is so much my dad did and memories we shared not only with each other but with the whole family but for me without a doubt, I’ll always remember my dad as the legend of Tommy Kirk.

P.S. My wife actually saw that Tommy Kirk professed to be a Christian. Who knows if he had a personal relationship with Jesus, but I really hope he did! What a thought—if Dad was able to meet him in heaven, then he could finally figure out what happened in that mysterious plane crash!

Until next time, and from now on, Merry Christmas in heaven, Dad! I love you!

~ Joe Lester ~